Woman Charged in €1.5 Million Gold Nugget Theft from Paris Museum
PARIS,FRANCE - A Chinese-born woman is in custody and has been charged following the theft of six gold nuggets,valued at approximately €1.5 million ($1.75m; £1.3m), from the museum of Natural History in Paris last month. French prosecutors announced the charges today.
The suspect was apprehended in Barcelona on September 30th while attempting to sell melted gold, and has been handed over to French authorities, remaining in pre-trial detention. Spanish police made the arrest following the issuance of a European Arrest warrant. Approximately one kilogram of melted gold was recovered at the time of her arrest, and authorities believe she was preparing to travel to China.
The stolen gold originated from the museum’s mineralogy gallery. One of the largest nuggets, originally from Australia, weighed 5kg and is currently valued at around €585,000.
the theft was facilitated by a cyberattack that disabled the museum’s alarm and surveillance systems. “The thieves, clearly very experienced and well-informed, exploited a security flaw that had not been identified during the last audit conducted in 2024,” a museum spokesperson told le Figaro. Police discovered an angle-grinder and a blowtorch at the scene.
Museum cleaners discovered the break-in before dawn. Museum Director Emmanuel Skoulios described the thieves as “extremely professional,” adding, ”It is absolutely not by chance that they went for these specific items.”
This incident comes amidst a recent spate of museum thefts in France, including a separate daring raid at the Louvre Museum earlier this month where thieves stole eight valued items, escaping on scooters in under eight minutes. Art detective Arthur Brand stated, “This won’t be their first heist… They are confident and they thought, ‘we might get away with this’, and went for it.” At least four French museums have been targeted in recent months, according to media reports.
